Remembering the Charge of the Light Brigade: Its Commemoration,War Memorials and Memory

Abstract

This paper takes a broad approach to the British and Irish commemoration of the Charge of the Light Brigade (CLB), by assessing the contemporary documentary and memorial evidence and providing useful case-studies for further research. It builds upon the 1858 study by Captains Colbourne and Brine on Balaklava memorials and cemeteries by including an appreciation of those memorials and graves in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. In contrast to Colbourne and Brine's purpose, which was to provide a catalogue of graves and memorials, this paper seeks to interpret their impact, imagery or importance as required.     

The cultural biography of a Western Australian war memorial

In common with other western countries, there is resurgence in war commemoration in Australia indicating a serious pursuit of identity and a national story on a collective and personal level. A widespread academic and popular interest in war memory and material culture such as war memorials has emerged. War memorials often find their way on to heritage registers. This paper advances cultural biography as an approach to determine the significance of war memorials arguing that this may give a deeper understanding of its community meaning than present methods. Emerging in archaeology cultural biography considers the way that social interactions between people and objects over time create meaning. Using the Katanning war memorial statue in Western Australia as a case study, this paper argues that a cultural biographical approach may uncover a deeper cultural significance resulting from a focus on relationships than from the traditional focus on the memorial as object.     

Memorial gardens as dramaturgical space

Abstract

Since the end of the First World War British and Allied military cemeteries and memorial sites have been designed within a carefully controlled Imperial aesthetic. The emotional and historical capital of these sites has made objective judgement difficult; the burden of martial memory has made innovation in design almost impossible. This paper examines how the Dominion forces – notably Canada – achieved a distinct nationalism in their war memorials after the Great War. By focussing on two recent Canadian memorial sites – in London and France – the paper speculates on the ways in which artistic and military precedent informs the construction of monuments of conflict. The study concludes by looking at the recent public enthusiasm for floral and other temporary memorials which have challenged the rhetoric of official mourning.     

Australia's Global Memory Footprint: Memorial Building on the Western Front, 1916–2015

Shortly after the First World War ended, Australian authorities erected memorials in France and Belgium in memory of the Australian Imperial Force. Decades later, during the so-called ‘second generation of memory’, Australians again engaged in planting memorials on sites of memory on the Western Front. This article compares the two periods of memorial building, contrasting the sites that were chosen for commemoration and examining what these suggest about the difference between past and contemporary modes of remembering the First World War. It highlights the growing importance, in extra-territorial commemoration, of memorial diplomacy and the development of a shared memory between Australians and the communities which host their memorials.     

Awake anon the tales of valour: the career of a war memorial in St. Catharines,Ontario

Memorials cultivate a common understanding of the past that is communicated through the celebration of select people, places or events. Because memorials are located in public space and crafted from time‐defeating materials, the process of commemoration is inherently political. Scholars have studied this process to discover the agendas that inform the ideological content of memorials, but rarely how this content is received by its audience. This question is especially pertinent when memorials outlast the generation and the ideology that created them. This study attempts an answer by exploring the career of one memorial: the monument in St. Catharines, Ontario, dedicated to Private Alexander Watson, a casualty of the Battle of Batoche (1885). It finds that the monument's significance was transformed by political, cultural and historiographical shifts. While its local audience has forgotten its specific message, its generic intent to honour fallen soldiers is still recognized.     

明代密疏书写格式考论

明代的密疏是朝臣上呈给皇帝的一种秘密章奏,是一种特殊的上行官书。和普通的题、奏本相比,它有诸多的不同。其中密疏书写格式的特殊,既是密疏与一般章奏最显的差别之处,其相对独特的书写格式的形成,也是明代密疏言事初步制度化的一个表现。明代密疏书写格式的发展,大致经历了两个阶段,即明代中前期时,密疏的书写格式依照一般的题、奏本格式,并无太大的差别;而到了明世宗嘉靖初年,始形成了影响后世的书写格式。明代密疏的书写格式大体上包括开首、叙事和结尾三个主要的部分,此外,密疏书写中的尊上与禁忌也与一般的章奏有较大的不同,这些正是明代密疏书写格式的独特之处。     

战争纪念馆游客旅游动机对体验的影响研究——以南京大屠杀纪念馆为例

本文设计了“学习及好奇”、“责任与义务”、“社会因素”、“个人情感体验”、“教育体验”5个潜变量,构建了战争纪念馆游客旅游动机对体验影响的结构关系模型,并以国家4A级旅游区南京大屠杀纪念馆为例,探讨了此类旅游动机对体验的作用机理。研究结果表明：（1）“责任与义务”是游客访问战争纪念馆的主要动机,也是与传统旅游的根本区别之一,与“个人情感体验”及“教育体验”有较高的路径系数（0．97,0．48）;（2）被动地参观战争纪念馆不利于游客体验的提高,从市场营销角度看,应该强调游客积极主动的参与,强调游客“责任与义务”方面的动机;（3）游客参观南京大屠杀纪念馆几乎没有对死亡感兴趣的动机,因此战争纪念馆旅游不完全属于黑色旅游研究范畴;（4）旅游动机及体验是区分特殊兴趣旅游的主要标志,未来需从特殊兴趣旅游（如战争纪念馆旅游）角度进一步探索旅游体验的本质。     

Monuments, Memory and Marginalisation in Adelaide's Prince Henry Gardens

Social and cultural dominance is (re)produced in the landscape by the exclusion or marginalisation of subordinate and minority groups. This paper illustrates the long-standing and ongoing exclusion of representations of indigeneity in and around Prince Henry Gardens, part of one of the most significant cultural and memorial sites in South Australia. Prince Henry Gardens is home to a large number of monuments and memorials that commemorate almost solely non-indigenous people and events. This is a selective and deliberate landscape of the dominant culture. It confirms a legacy of indigenous dispossession and is symbolic of ongoing marginalisation. While there have been recent compensatory initiatives by state and city agencies to create landscapes of reconciliation through symbolic gestures such as renaming parkland areas, these are argued to be contentious. They associate indigeneity with the city's margins, with violent places and public drunkenness, and perpetuate problematic associations between ‘real’ indigeneity and nature. The paper concludes with some ideas for new memorial landscapes intended to help construct a postcolonial Australian city.     

Historicizing the present: Brussels attacks and heritagization of spontaneous memorials

This research article traces the process of transition from spontaneous to ‘official’ memorialisation of the 2016 Brussels terrorist attack by questioning which factors trigger the heritagization process of spontaneous memorials and their contents. With a view to critically assess the significance of heritage values in relation to terrorism, this article scrutinises how these values are grasped, narrated and articulated by the local authorities, government and archival institutions in the preservation, conservation and heritagization of spontaneous memorials. There is an emphasis on the two facets of heritagization: how meanings attached to a memorial and its objects are created and expressed by the community of bereavement, and how the transformation of places, practices, objects into diverse forms of ‘heritage’ evolves. This article brings a new perspective on the heritagization of spontaneous memorials, seen as important in determining how a traumatic event such is a terrorist attack will settle in the collective memory on the long term, by becoming historicized.     

Cosmopolitanism nationalism and the heritage of shame: comfort women memorials and the legacy of slavery in the United States

During World War II the Japanese military used approximately 200,000 women, mainly Koreans, as bonded workers they euphemistically labeled, ‘comfort women’. Since 2010, six memorial sites dedicated to the suffering of these women have been built in the United States. Campaigns for these memorials have been led by Korean-Americans, reflecting the importance this issue has in South Korea and within the Korean Diaspora. While a growing body of research has examined the political, social, and gender ramifications of the ‘Comfort Women’ issue in South Korea and on Korean-Japanese relations, less attention has been given to the transnational aspects of this memorializing campaign. What is the purpose of these memorials in the United States? How might visitors to such sites remember and memorialize trauma they know little about and which occurred far away? And how do these memorial sites dedicated to such distant trauma contrast with the absence of memorials for events much closer at hand, such as the historical realities of slavery? I examine these questions through an analysis of a ‘Comfort Women’s Memorial Peace Garden’ dedicated at the Fairfax County (Virginia) Government Center in May, 2014.     

Hidden in plain sight: mixed methods and the marble orchards of the Vlach Rom (Gypsies) in Toledo,Ohio

While American Romanies live a remarkably secretive cultural existence, their grave locations and memorial stones offer accessible evidence about their history and active, on-going communities. This article elaborates a less-intrusive ethnographic method that uses Romani cemetery data to explore and map the distributions and social networks of American Romani communities. This case study identifies Vlach Rom memorial sites located in Toledo, Ohio's Calvary Catholic Cemetery. Data were gathered on the memorials and spatially cataloged using a global positioning system (GPS). Additionally, genealogical data on the families were collected whenever available in order to construct and map family networks. Conjectures explaining the spatial distribution were tested by empirically investigating geographic information system (GIS) maps of different gravesite attributes. Land availability was the most likely factor determining the distribution. Evidence of Toledo Rom history and cultural practices were also gathered and reviewed from a qualitative analysis of the memorial stones. These discoveries have the potential to advance Romany studies—by applying modern analytic tools, GPS and GIS hardware and software to reveal otherwise “hidden” knowledge.     

Transformative landscapes: liminality and visitors’ emotional experiences at German memorial sites

Abstract

The atrocities of Nazi Germany included the radical transformation of natural landscapes. At Ravensbrück (Brandenburg), a lakeside setting became the site of the largest women’s concentration camp in Germany, processing approximately 159,000 inmates until 1945. Similarly, at Flossenbürg (Bavaria), a picturesque valley in the Oberpfälzer Wald housed a large concentration camp with approximately 100,000 inmates over seven years and a granite quarry to support Hitler’s extensive construction programme. After the war, part of Ravensbrück became a Soviet Army base, while large sections of Flossenbürg were removed to make way for a new housing and industrial development. Along with other former camps (particularly Auschwitz-Birkenau), parts of these landscapes were developed into memorial sites that aim to provide a liminal experience for visitors – a ‘rite of passage’. In attempting to regain a sense of place that evokes the trauma of the past, the landscapes of the memorial sites of Ravensbrück and Flossenbürg were recently altered to resemble their appearance in 1945. For visitors, however, the aesthetic experience of these landscapes lies in stark contrast to the narrative they encounter at both sites; they are surprised to see signs of life, objecting to modernisation at Ravensbrück or the existence of a supermarket next to the memorial site in Flossenbürg. This paper examines the transformative processes of these landscapes and explores how their liminality is constructed, experienced and challenged. Through empirical visitor research conducted at both sites, it provides a critical evaluation of the narrative given to visitors and suggests how these important sites can offer a more engaging ‘rite of passage’.     

Coming to Terms with the Stasi: History and Memory in the Bautzen Memorial

This paper examines the role played by the encounter of history and personal memories in the difficult process of coming to terms with the Stasi in present-day eastern Germany. While historians have made substantial progress over the last two decades in accounting for the wide range of ways in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) is remembered by East Germans, the memorials and museums of the reunified Germany remain unable to integrate memories of dictatorial oppression and happiness in everyday life. Sites commemorating state repression are thus often assumed to lack impact on former GDR citizens whose memories differ from official versions of history. These assumptions are tested for the Bautzen Memorial, formerly known as the ‘celebrities’ prison' of the East German Ministry of State Security. Focusing on the differing receptions of GDR memorial sites, this article draws on interviews with two former political prisoners and with visitors to the Memorial who grew up in socialist East Germany. It argues that the open approach of the Memorial, which leaves visitors to draw their own conclusions from the exhibition, allows different stakeholders to find ways of personal engagement with the past at the site despite the disparities with their own memories.     

Making sense of remembrance

In recent years the annual cycle of war remembrance in Britain has been punctuated by major anniversaries and the inauguration of new war memorials. This paper explores whether time and forgetfulness are gradually eroding the power of twentieth century war memorials as traces of memory in the everyday landscape. It finds that at least some war memorials are retaining their significance and even evolving new significance as time passes. The paper considers how the sensuous and spectacular nature of war remembrance has contributed to this process and draws attention to the centrality of sight, sound and touch to remembrance activities. Case studies are then used to explore how war memorials in specific localities provide a locus for making sense of remembrance in the twenty‐first century.     

On the Side of Light: Performing Morality at Rwanda’s Genocide Memorials

Abstract

In Rwanda, numerous memorials have arisen to remember the 1994 genocide and its victims. This paper considers the effect of the national genocide memorials on Western tourist visitors, in the context of research on ‘dark tourism’ and Western attitudes toward death and the dead. It draws on the idea that, in a Western context, viewing the remains of violent death can be a kind of ‘soft murder’, and on the concept that the act of witnessing violence creates a community of witnesses implicated in that violence. Western visitors to Rwandan genocide memorials therefore form a community, and their responses are guided by a set of community rules regarding behaviour and experiences during and after the visit. These rules, this paper argues, are rooted in pressures to assert oneself as a properly moral individual through performing morality in a morally ambiguous setting.     

Recent developments in social and cultural geography in Spain

Controversy has erupted in Selma, Alabama, over recent efforts to commemorate the career of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate cavalry officer and founding member of the original Ku Klux Klan. More generally, the controversy in Selma is emblematic of an enduring regional pattern in which contests over the future are couched in terms of the past. Relative to other media, monuments appear to be trustworthy and lasting. Despite this appearance of historical consensus and stability, the city's public spaces are the product of and conduit for ongoing politics. The current conflict pits memorial activists associated with the Civil Rights Movement against neo‐Confederates. Interpreted in the context of Selma's increasing promotion of Civil Rights heritage and the recent election of the city's first African American mayor, the Forrest affair highlights the utility of the concept of symbolic accretion for understanding the complexities of commemorating antagonistic histories in the same place. Symbolic accretion describes the appending of commemorative elements onto already existing memorials. The situation in Selma suggests two different types of symbolic accretion, allied and antithetical. More generally, the act of commemoration itself may be understood as a process of accretion in that heretofore anonymous spaces are formally recognized via the grafting of memorial elements.     

Gravestones and Monuments in the Maritime Cultural Landscape: Research Potential and Preliminary Interpretations

Thousands of memorials around the world commemorate maritime disasters and death. In addition to commemoration, memorials provide insight into the conceptual landscape of maritime peoples. Types of maritime memorials, locations where they can be found, and the limitations of memorials as archaeological artefacts are discussed. Data from 18th- and 19th-century English and American maritime memorials are used to make preliminary interpretations regarding Anglo-American maritime beliefs. Based on this I argue that memorials are a valuable source of data for maritime cultural landscape studies, particularly for what they reveal about maritime belief systems.
© 2006 The Author     

“Don’t call me a Cajun!”: race and representation in Louisiana’s Acadiana region

In southwestern Louisiana, the public sphere is dominated by the image of the Cajuns, presented as a hardy, likable people who have overcome significant obstacles since their arrival as Acadians in the late eighteenth century. Across the cultural region designated “Acadiana,” which comprises 22 counties, nearly 30% of the population is black (or Creole, mixed-race peoples generally identifying as black). Contributions of non-whites to the region’s history are usually not incorporated into the public historical narrative, and the erasure of these groups’ influences on the state’s cultural “gumbo” has profound symbolic and material consequences. Black/Creole residents note that much of their culture – primarily music and foodways – has been repackaged as Cajun or subsumed under the Cajun label and that they are unable to take advantage of the benefits that Creole-oriented tourism could bring to a region in which half of the counties are designated “black high poverty parishes.” Using mixed methods, including interviews, archival analysis, and census data, this paper explores the social, political, and economic consequences of the domination of Cajuns in the south Louisiana memorial and representational landscape and argues that commemorative silences in what Alderman et al. have called the “memorial arena” perpetuate a hegemonic social order.     

Roadside Memorials: Interpreting New Deathscapes in Newcastle,New South Wales

Over recent years, roadside memorials to commemorate people killed in motor vehicle accidents have become increasingly noticeable in parts of the Australian landscape. In Newcastle, New South Wales, roadside memorials are placed for young people. The age/gender group most at risk of road death, and those most memorialised, are young men. This is linked to spatially specific constructions of masculinity which circulate within youth milieux of Newcastle. Like other memorials and monuments these ‘deathscapes’ have multiple meanings, differing between those who build, maintain and interpret them. They function as conservative memorials of youth machismo; of heroic aggression, disregard for safety and egocentrism. Roadside memorials need to be re-read as symbolic of societal flaws; of a wasteful road toll, and a testament to dominant and problematic strains of masculinity.